and at the white house, president obama stood side by side with the german chancellor angela merkel. the two threatening new sanctions if russia interferes with ukraine's election on may 25th. >> the next step is going to be a broad sectoral regime. >> what does it mean? michelle kosinski is at the white house tonight. there is going to be sanctions if russia invades. now sanctions if they interfere with the elections. how significant is that rhetorical change? >> we were really surprised by that, because we had been hearing the same thing for weeks and weekses. and there has been pressure from members of congress. there has been pressure from the press as well asking, well, this is only going to happen if russia full-on invades ukraine. haven't they essentially invaded part of ukraine? questions like that. and then today the administration said. this it was like oh, wow, did i hear that correctly? that there is going to be a lesser benchmark, if you will, for imposing those more sweeping sanctions. and the question wasn't really asked today, and the president didn't really explain w